"If you desire it, I'll heal Midnight," Bask promised. "Don't cry. If I'm not...taken... I promise, I'll try..."
Willoughby nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
Damelza rubbed her hands together like she was satisfied with handing out a detention. "Of course, the whipping boy. This one should interest you, Duchess. Weren't you intrigued by how I tamed my students? He'll suffer the Sleep Deprivation Hex."
Before I could even shield him with my magic, Damelza shot a shower of crows' feathers cascading across Midnight like the reverse of the Sandman. Midnight keened, and Lysander rubbed across his shoulders.
Titus' lips quirked in amusement.
The Duchess inclined her head with affected boredom. "More spells, of course."
"My, you'd almost think that this was a coven," Damelza drawled. "And a hex, rather than a spell. He can't fall asleep now."
"For how long?"
"That depends how long he takes to go crazy or kill himself, I suppose. In Hecate's name, Bacchus why don't you make it this term's SHP experiment?"
Pocus abruptly stopped purring, and his eyes narrowed.
"How inventive." Bacchus’ eyes swirled amber. "One whipping boy, no sleep, observe the outcome."
Pocus hissed in distress. I suspected that as a fellow vampire, who’d been transformed into a familiar just like my crows had, he was fiercely protective of Midnight.
Did he love him, despite being bound to Bacchus?
To my surprise, the Duchess straightened in her chair, and her mouth tightened into a moue of distaste. "In my culture, we train the beautiful. We don't kill them, even the freaks." Willoughby and I tightened our hold on Bask, as she raked her gaze over him. "Isn't your whipping boy too delicious to waste?"
Damelza huffed. "He's a vampire. They're already a waste."
This time, it was Sleipnir holding Lysander back by his wings.
Except, then Damelza's gaze slid to Lysander and with a single slash of her finger through the air, a D burned itself onto his forehead. Lysander yowled, and Sleipnir dragged him tightly to his chest.
Don't let Damelza do this. Not with Titus watching. Wasn't it enough?
Titus no longer looked amused. "What's the meaning of this?"
Damelza looked smug. Was this punishment as much a sneaky revenge on Titus as Lysander?
"I don't have to worry about losing the Princes' whipping boy to madness because I've gained a Dunce." Damelza was enjoying this. "And as you know, a Dunce is like a whipping boy but with even less rights. Who'd have guessed that our patron's own ward would ever be reduced so low?"
Titus was ashen with fury. He stood with a repressed rage that trembled through his wings, then he prowled to the castle gates.
"Follow me, boy," he barked at Lysander without looking around.
Lysander bit his lip, avoiding out gazes but turned on his heel and followed his uncle. I wanted so much to walk with him and face Titus at his side or at least not to watch and listen. But despite the snow and the winds that drove harder and faster in my distress, there was nothing but silence and the hissed conversation between Titus and Lysander.
"You bring shame on me, your kingdom, and all Unseelie." Titus towered over Lysander who stood military straight, unflinching. "Your whipping boy will die for your failure, and you wear the mark of your disgrace for all to see. Do you think I shall ever let you home after humiliating me like this? You're worthless."
Titus slapped Lysander across the cheek with a crisp smack.
The sudden violence shocked me, and Bask gasped.
Yet it hadn't shocked Lysander. He hadn't even tried to move away.
I'd known.
Of course, I'd heard the unspoken truth of his guardian's harshness in Lysander’s inability to understand Ambrose's kindness to his son, or his admission that he'd been beaten since he could fly or...so many other fragments that build up to this single moment, and I saw it...
Lysander's life in the Fae Court must've been as brutal as Robin's had been as a mage in the Rebel Academy. It didn't matter that one was a prince and one an orphan. I hadn't been able to save Robin but I would save Lysander because I could see now that uncle and nephew were together how utterly ridiculous it'd been to imagine that they were anything alike.
Witnessing brutality was so much worse than guessing it in theory. My eyes burned with tears. Willoughby's understanding gaze met mine.
But I didn’t need compassion. As Flair would say, I needed a fucking great kick up the arse.
When Titus raised his hand to strike Lysander for a second time, Lysander didn’t move. But I sure as black cats did.
I unraveled myself in a blink of a witch’s eye, and rematerialized next to Lysander. The pink hand print on his cheek that painted him with his guardian’s displeasure, spurred me to wrap my mists around Titus’ wrist and tug.
Titus grimaced. “Is this your traditional greeting? Should I be flattered?”
My eyes flashed. “That’s the last thing you should be, but the rules of polite society dictate that you may continue in your delusion.” I coiled my mists more firmly around his wrist. “Never raise your hand to Lysander. Never again.”
Titus’s gaze didn’t waver from mine, then he gave a tight smile. “This is the first time that we meet, since you stand me up at our wedding, and already you command me. You’re precisely as I’ve always imagined.”
That didn’t sound like a good thing.
I tilted my head. “How interesting. Because you’re precisely how I’ve always imagined, which is why I refused to be forced into a marriage with you.”
Titus’ eyes flashed, and finally, he lost his cool composure. “May I have my hand back or are you waiting for me to offer it again in marriage?”
My mists dropped his wrist like it was toxic.
“How gracious of you to free me,” Titus said, drily.
When I glanced sideways at Lysander, I caught his expression as he studied me underneath his eyelashes. It was the same one that I’d earlier seen on Midnight’s face: adoration.
I flushed. Bask’s worship of me was easy because he lived to love. Yet for Lysander, it meant renouncing everything that he was.
Was now the time to panic that I wouldn’t do well under pressure?
Titus glanced between Lysander and me. “My ward is failing.” His words were clipped and sharp. “You need more effective — harsher — methods to motivate him, Damelza. You have my permission to no longer pamper the brat.”
“And mine with…the elf from my kingdom,” Darby added far too gleefully.
Would his prick fall off if the word brother passed his lips?
Juni’s expression became stony. “As the Princes’ Tutor, I can assure you both that the Princes work tirelessly at bettering themselves, behave with decorum, and are a credit to—”
Darby’s snort was not at all kingly. “Willoughby is a monster. A killer isn’t a credit to anyone.”
Willoughby’s shoulder’s slumped.
“Hey, as the resident monster, objection.” Sleipnir raised the Rebel Cup above his head. “I produce Exhibit A.”
Juni hid her laugh in her palm.
“Then let them all have a final chance to prove their worth.” Titus’ smile was shark sharp. What had I missed? Why did I feel like all of us had walked straight into a trap that Titus had spun all along? And this is what happened when your professor for Strategy was walled up alive. “Surely, you wish to redeem yourself?”